Veins, Vessels Fill Station Research Schedule after Crew Returns to Earth
Expedition 73, with its four newest crewmates, kicked off the week exploring how living in space affects the circulatory system and exercise. Meanwhile, the four crew members from NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission are back on Earth and getting used to gravity after five months aboard the International Space Station.
Flight Engineers Zena Cardman from NASA and Oleg Platonov joined each other on Monday for Ultrasound 2 scans of their neck, shoulder, and leg veins looking for signs of space-caused blood clots. Afterward, NASA astronaut Mike Fincke and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui took part in the vein scans that are scheduled for the crew throughout a mission. The quartet has been on the space station for over week since arriving on Aug. 2 aboard the SpaceX Dragon as NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission. Doctors will be monitoring the crew’s health for the duration of its stay in space adding to the growing space medical knowledge potentially leading to advanced treatments for a variety of ailments in space and on Earth.
Cardman also worked out on the advanced resistive exercise device as specialists on the ground monitored taking note of her cardiorespiratory fitness, muscle strength, and fitness in microgravity. NASA Flight Engineer Jonny Kim took part in another portion of the same experiment, the CIPHER suite of 14 human research investigations, and collected his blood and urine samples for processing, stowage, and later analysis. CIPHER is a study that looks at how space travel affects astronauts’ bodies and minds during short and long missions. By comparing results from different mission lengths, scientists can better prepare for future trips to places like Mars and help keep astronauts healthy.
Station Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Flight Engineer Alexey Zubritsky, both from Roscosmos, partnered together on Monday and examined how blood flows to the tiny vessels, known as the microcirculatory system, in a crew member’s hands, fingers, feet, and toes. Researchers will study the data to understand how weightlessness affects blood circulation and keep crews healthy during long-duration space missions.
Four Crew-10 members are back on Earth following a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Aug. 9 aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft completing their five-month stay aboard the orbital outpost. The Commercial Crew quartet returned to NASA’s Johnson Space Center later that day to begin several weeks of rehabilitation activities to help their bodies readjust to Earth’s gravity. Astronauts Anne McClain of NASA and Takuya Onishi of JAXA both completed their second spaceflight. NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov both wrapped up their first mission aboard the orbital laboratory.
Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
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Mark A. Garcia
